Space and other large things
by YelandaSithAssasin
Summary: After the defeat of the Empire, Luke's skills as a Jedi are no longer needed so he decides to start working as a private investigator. With the help of his annoying sidekick, Land Calrisian, Luke cracks his first big case.
1. Chapter 1

_Space_, Luke thought, _is big. _You don't realize how big it is when you can travel by hyperspace routes. It could take many hundreds of years to travel from one end to the other at sub-light speed.

Why, Luke had even heard of a man who, through an unfortunate accident with a rubber band the hyperspace engines and a large bottle of alcohol, had spent most of his life on an inspiring and slow journey through space just to reach the closest repair station. His only companion on this epic journey was a female translator droid with an unfortunate case of Tourette's.

Thinking about the vastness of space always made Luke depressed, so he stopped. Instead he thought about the large dinner he would have when he got home from work. He always had a large dinner when he got home from work and as a result he had a rather rotund midsection. In fact his whole body was rather on the large side. Large enough that he felt the need to attend his local gym whenever they weren't having problems with their out of date jogging equipment.

Thinking about exercise also made him hungry which then led to thoughts about his work. _When space is so large, how then am I meant to find anyone? _He thought.

After the defeat of the Galactic Empire, Luke's skills as a Jedi were no longer needed. And seeing as how he wasn't that good of a Jedi anyway, he decided to start business as a private investigator. He chose private investigator as a likely job to meet attractive young women and get lots of money by following people home. So far he hadn't met any women under the age of 60 and hadn't been earning a whole lot of money and the whole thing made Luke feel a bit sorry for himself.

So far the only jobs that he'd had was searching for missing husbands which wasn't that hard because they'd all been hiding in the neighbors broom closets. Luke wanted a more exiting case with high speed chases and possibly a murder involved. He wanted a beautiful lady to express her undying love to him as he searched for her missing jewelry. All these exiting thoughts made Luke even hungrier so he decided to call it a day and eat that large dinner he had been thinking about all day.

He stood up and walked to his office door. He briefly glanced at the new plaque on the front. He was very proud of it and polished it regularly with his special plaque cleaning kit. _L. J. Skywalker, _it read, _Private investigator._

Just as Luke was about to lock the door, a man came running towards him, shouting in excitement. Luke squinted for a second then frowned in annoyance upon realizing who it was. Lando Calrisian, Luke's business partner.

Luke liked to think of Lando as his sidekick but Lando, funnily enough, didn't like this term and preferred to think of them as equal business partners.

Lando had decided to join Luke in business when he tried to give himself the rank of general by fiddling some numbers in the rebel's computers. They didn't take to kindly to this and had politely asked him to leave unless he wanted to lose a few vital organs. Taking the hint, Lando joined the circus and had a rather disappointing profession as a fire juggler were he burnt down the tent and set his bosses mustache on fire. Giving up on this career path, Lando then joined Luke, much to Luke's annoyance. The older man had a penchant for gambling and had lost a few of their credits this way, to which Luke responded by shaking him violently then removing his name from the door as a punishment making it, in Luke's opinion, a much nicer door to look at.

When Lando finally arrived to stand in front of Luke, he grinned wildly and waved something large and yellow in the air. Luke scowled.

'What is it Lando?' He said 'I'm in a hurry.'

Lando's smile grew and Luke noticed that he wasn't even puffed after his mad dash down the hallway outside the office. Luke's scowl deepened. Lando, a vain and shallow man in Luke's opinion, liked to keep his body nice and fit and his hair well-oiled and combed unlike Luke who looked shabby and a bit sad.

Lando waved the large yellow something a few more times for effect before practically shouting:

'it's a case.'

He beamed brilliantly and Luke snatched, what he now realized was a case file, from Lando's hand. Lando continued on in an excited voice.

'It's a real one this time, not like all the others with missing husbands hiding in broom closets.'

Luke opened the file, curious in spite of himself. It did indeed look exciting. It was a missing person case but instead of an errant husband, it was the wealthy teenage girl whose parents would pay handsomely for her safe return. Luke could already see all the new equipment they could buy with all this money, not to mention all those large dinners he could by with any money left over.

'Well?' Asked Lando whose grin, defying physics, had gotten even bigger.

Luke sighed, not wanting to look to eager.

'I suppose we could do it.' He looked away, trying to look irritated and unsure at the same time but just ended up looking constipated instead so he stopped.

'OK.' He said finally. 'Let's go over it in the office tomorrow.'

He went back into his office and placed the case file lovingly on his desk before locking the door and inviting Lando over for dinner to celebrate their first big case. Lando happily accepted and Luke nearly punched himself for forgetting how much he disliked Lando's company, especially at dinner time. With a defeated sigh, Luke turned and walked out of the building that his office was located in and turned towards home with a maddeningly cheerful Lando in tow.


	2. Chapter 2

Luke was a man of simple pleasures. He liked his food hot and his alcohol cold, unless it was a strange new alien beverage then it could be warm. Luke sighed with pleasure as he dug into his hot nerf steak. Juicy and tender and cooked just right. He closed his eyes and chewed slowly, savoring every bite.

Luke heard a small cough and, opening his eyes, realized that Lando was sitting across from him also savoring a slightly smaller serving of nerf steak. Luke rolled his eyes in annoyance. Seeing Lando at _his_ kitchen table eating _his_ food was almost enough to put Luke of his steak. Almost, but not quite.

Luke decided to ignore Lando so he turned his chair pointedly and faced the holovid which was currently showing a pretty young woman explaining how to use a new type of toilet plunger. Under normal circumstances Luke really hated infomercials but anything was better than awkwardly watching Lando as he ate. Luke settled into his chair for some good old bad quality TV.

Lando sighed in exasperation. Sometimes he really didn't get Luke at all. He would act all professional and grown up and the next minute he'd be acting like a two year old. What really confused Lando was the fact that Luke and Princess Leia were brother and sister. Luke's twin sister was smart, mature and a good leader whereas Luke was, well, not that. To be fair Leia could be a bit bossy and whiney but she didn't compare to Luke's bossiness and whininess. He was on a whole other level.

Lando shook himself out of his reverie, then cleared his throat.

'Luke old buddy' he said, 'we should really talk about this new case. It's important.'

Luke turned around rolling his eyes before sighing and nodding his head. Lando cleared both of their plates then sat back down and pulled out the case file. As they went over the details they noticed a few familiar names. The girl who had been kidnapped was called Jenny Solo. It was a common enough name that they had overlooked it when they had first received the case, but now they noticed the name of the parents, Han and Bria Solo.

They didn't recognize the mothers name but Han Solo was the name of an old friend of theirs from their days working in the Rebel Alliance. Han had fought alongside them both as a part of the rebellion. He had also dated Leia for a while after they defeated the empire but they broke up after Han had found her cheating on him with his copilot Chewbacca. Taking this rather hard Han had become an alcoholic and nobody had heard from him for quite a while until a few years previously when he had resurfaced as the lead guitarist in a space rock band.

Lando and Luke hadn't spoken to him for quite some time but when they found out about the band Lando made an effort to always send Han creepy anonymous fan mail as a joke. Luke bean wondering if they should ask to get his autograph as a part of their reward.

They couldn't screw this case up. They needed to find Hans daughter as soon as they could for all their sakes. They scanned the case file for any additional information about the kidnapper himself.

According to a few witnesses the kidnapper was a tall thin man with a large black mustache and an afro of a matching colour. One lady claimed to have seen an eight foot tall purple dinosaur with a creepy smile make off with Jenny but they quickly dismissed this due to the fact that the lady was 109 years old and suffering from Alzheimers.

Luke and Lando decided to take a trip and go and talk to some of the witnesses as well as Han and his wife themselves. Thankfully Han lived in a nearby star system so it wouldn't take too long to get there.

It was believe that the kidnapper was still in the area so Luke and Lando would have to book a room in a hotel in the area for a while. They just needed to take a high speed shuttle to that system and be there in a day or so, although the idea of being in a confined space with Lando for an extended period of time made Luke feel slightly queasy. They decided to leave the next morning, so Lando said goodnight and headed home.

The next morning Lando arrived bright and early on Luke's doorstep and rang the doorbell. An irate Luke answered, wearing a dressing gown and clutching a cup of caff.

'Goddammit Lando' Groaned Luke. 'You couldn't have given me a few more minutes?'

Lando smiled like an indulgent uncle at Luke.

'I've already bought the shuttle tickets and it leaves in an hour.' He said.

Luke swore heartily. It took 45 minutes to get to the space port from his apartment and he hadn't even had a shower yet. Luke dashed inside and got ready in record time. On his way out the door Luke used the force to grab his keys, wallet and suitcase that was sitting next to the front door.

Just because Luke wasn't a Jedi any more didn't mean that he couldn't still use the force. He mainly used it for finding missing socks and impressing girls at parties. Unfortunately, at the last party he had attended he had been a bit overenthusiastic about impressing this one girls that he had spilt every single guests drink on her head. He had never been invited back to anymore parties since.

Once Luke had locked his apartment door, he and Lando set of towards the space port in Lando's speeder. They arrived at the station with time to spare so Luke went to buy some chips from the solitary vending machine sitting next to the departures gate.

After nearly getting kicked out because of his inability to use vending machines, Luke boarded the shuttle along with Lando. They found their seats and sat down, the excitement of the new case building in their heads.


End file.
